Official Luthiers Forum!

Heres one I hope will stump Paddy for a minute at least -I tried to tack it on to the end of the Russle R name that luthier but no-one took notice,
This guy has been dead for a good long time - but his work is amazing!

Morgan ?

heres some better pics

another by this obscure master






and no not Morgan, good one though.
Cheers
Charliewwodcharliewood38818.7454513889

Orville Gibson ?

getting closer but no, made between the 20's and 40's
Cwood
I bet Paddy knows....... charliewood38818.7521180556

Lloyd Loar?

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

C F Martin I

No and no - another hint would be the man is of Italian descent.
Cheers
Charliewood
his bridge design was one that offered adjustable intonation, although the picture doesnt really show that detail the actual bridge has a sliding foot that moves forward and retracts, a very cool & much needed innovation. U can kinda see it if you look closely.charliewood38818.7604166667

D'Angelico

Nope - not D'Angelico - both fretboards are scalloped in an ingenious way and capped with metal as opposed to fretted in the traditional sense, in essence depending on the amount of pressure applied to the fretboard you can play a fretted or unfretted scale -> according to the author of the article - despite the time period these guitars were made - there is practically zero filler in the inlay work when viewed under a 30x scope.
Cheers
Charliewood

Where are you Paddy?

Remember this is "Wins Paddy's Zoot"!!

Paddy where are you indeed?
Charliewood
Another hint is that you will probably only see these guitars in a particular museum in San Fran by appointment only.
anyone?charliewood38818.7861689815

C'mon - dont tell me that the newb is going to stump the Old Dawgs here at OLF? Jeesh I should win a prize for that!
We had better with til Paddy chimes in before we reveal the identity of this most infamous and elusive of all master luthiers.
Cheers
Charlie

Italian decent huh, wouldn't be Macaferri would it?

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

No not macaferri
Cheers
Charliewired
Last hint; Lived in NY - but he musta been a bad boy because guitar historians have tried to research this individual more thoroughly .... but sadly his family will not speak of him to this very day!!!
Among collectors his guitars are sought after masterpieces.

is it RAPHAEL CIANI???

this is a tricky one!

paddy

OMG Paddy nope its not - anyone else wanna take a stab at it? I knew this one would be hard though - one more clue - Staten Island was the locale of this builder, he was profiled in an article about the Silber reich museum - which is a Bay area stringed instrument museum in SF Ca. This museum was profiled in an 89 Guitar Player magazine article, which is where i found out about this awesome luthier and why I kept it so long.
His initials are P I Good luck,
Cheers
Charliewood

Philip Interdonati. I've seen them in person.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

good stuff howard,

thats a crazy guitar, would like to see them when i'm in SF this summer

phew!! i'm glad the pressure is off now, it was getting a bit weird for a while!

paddy

Howard Klepper wins the prize!!!
Yes indeed the notorious Philip Interdonati. Because this builder is so little known there is a good chance some of his creations are still in old {Italian American?} attics or closets collecting dust somewheres. If you find one PM me I will give you my address so you can send it along to me .
Cheers
Charliewood

Yes Paddy, you were starting to worry me a bit there! Glad you realized that, let me now win some ok!

Excellent work Im glad someone finally got it - I have wanted to see these guitars ever since I saw this article. I did however talk to Mark Silber about these wonderfulf creation by way of phone. He told me that there was nothing spectacular about them in terms of construction methods which were patterned in the style of a Martin somewhat stucturally {bracing and such}
But that the selection of woods and the actual workmanship was practically unparalleled for the time period and even unmatched contrasted by todays standards when you consider the tool this guy had to work with compared to todays luthier.
He also has some amazing examples of X braced guitars that predate Martin by almost 20 years, even though many assume that Martin was the inventor of that structural innovation. Appearantly the guitars were made by a pair of Russian luthiers in London {Roudhloff Bros} and Mr Silber surmises that Mr Martin must have visited thier shop on route to America and seen the way these instrumets were being built - fascinating stuff!
Cheers
Charlie

Oh yeah Howard - I forgot to ask - if you see this b4 it glides into the archives of course,
Did you get to play the Interdonati's at the Silber Reich museum?
Im dying to know what they sounded like!!!
Mark Silber was very enthusiastic about the sound of these instruments but of course he has a reason to bolster the estimation of these beauties.
Id be interested to know if you have heard the tone of the PI"s and what your opinion of them were.
Cheers
Charliewood
charliewood38819.6118055556